Power Of The Audience

We as the audience have the power to broadcast any message we want publicly through digital media. We can seek out like-minded people who have similar values or experiences to each other and unite in mutual beliefs to broadcast a message globally

For instance, the hashtag #TheWorldNeedsMore was introduced in 2013 for the United States World Humanitarian Day. People were invited to share a one worded response on twitter of what they believed that the world needed more of. For every contribution that the audience tweeted to #TheWorldNeedsMore, money was donated by sponsoring brands to aid the UN in providing humanitarian aid. ‘In the first three months, $700,000 was raised through the hashtag’.

This is just one example of the power of participatory culture.

Other examples such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MarriageEquality, #HeForShe, #BringBackOurGirls, #AmINext? also demonstrates the significance of audience participation.

This ability to share diverse content to a wide audiences and connect with people throughout the world demonstrates the ‘shift in power that goes with the platform shift’ as media critic Jay Rosen puts it.

The phrase ‘shift in power’ refers to the shifting role of the audience which creates a

new paradigm as we are no longer restricted to the affordances of legacy media, and we have the capability to broadcast our own dialogic message to the world which is then disseminated as a conversation across media platforms.

This ability to connect with people globally and provoke remedial action from audiences unlocks the power of participatory culture which is being utilised to address issues around the world.